The idea that it never ends is pure ideology of the intellectuals who are concerned, above all else, with enhancing, if not preserving their own relevance.

To me thinking is inherently wrapped up in the hermeneutic circle. It’s ongoing and never ends. Things are always being reconsidered.

Note that I distinguished between acting and a final word. My sense is you are conflating them.

Similarly, no criticisms have never been made either, since they aren’t final. And so on….

In other words, it strategically tries to redefine key terms in order to give the illusion that authoritative decisions and teachings are never actually being made by anybody.

I’m really not being flippant but I think there’s a big distinction between temporary decisions and acts and having a final word. It seems to me we always have to act without having the final word because there is no final word. Indeed from my perspective one big plus of your system is that it entails that. Things can always be taken up again.

Yes, the discussion can be re-opened, but again, there is an assignment for who can do this as well. All of this sounds very “trump-ish”. (It’s really unfortunate that this term has taken on such a negative connotation during this election.)

I think we’re talking different things. I’m presupposing that a critical self-reflexive person is conducting the inquiry. I’m not trying to understand why any or even most people believe what they believe. How on earth could I know why they believe? I think to assume any particular person is doing so for irrational reasons is a bit patronizing. I’m sure some do, but I couldn’t even guess at how many. Ultimately that’s just not an interesting question to me.

My point is that there are real spiritual experiences and people can rationally engage with them. Further I don’t think this reason requires a significant amount of education even if I might analyze it with various tools out of philosophy.

The problem is that if the basis of reason is in experiences that aren’t sharable then that limits how one can discuss them and more importantly share it as a persuasive set of reasons. The reasons just intrinsically demand the experiences. The best the believer can do is try and get people to experience those experiences themselves. Ultimately belief comes from the relationship of the inquirer and God.

To the point about faith becoming knowledge, again I’d disagree. I don’t think the process outlined in Alma 32 is particularly novel. Indeed it’s pretty close to the portrayal of knowledge acquisition in many theories. You try it out, look at the consequences, make a tentative conclusion and repeat until your belief is firm enough we call it knowledge.

Really you’re making these judgements based upon being able to provide reasons that would convince an other person of something. My point is that’s just a subset of reason based upon shared experiences. Without those shared experiences you can still reason but you can’t persuade. That’s what that little thought experiment was intended to demonstrate.

You’re responding with straw men arguments and tangents.

“mental illness certainly is the usual explanation”

You’re not being fair to my point. I’m not suggesting that mental illness is the only explanation for why people believe. We’re talking about if people are arriving at belief in LDS doctrines because of reason. Social pressure, conditioning, confirmation bias, intuition (i.e., the spirit), emotion, preexisting beliefs in magic and the supernatural explain people’s belief in LDS doctrine far more than reason. There are a select few intellectuals (yourself included) who arrived at belief in LDS doctrines at a young age largely for the reasons mentioned above, who attempt to assuage the pangs of cognitive dissonance that have arisen from a modern education by trying to make a case that LDS beliefs and doctrines are perfectly reasonable. The result is a poorly constructed reconciliation of faith and reason that has persuasive power only in believing circles. Truly reasonable propositions have persuasive power across intellectual cultures and disciplines, and use evidence that has wide recognition as valid evidence. “The spirit said so” wouldn’t be considered valid evidence outside Mormonism.

“LDS thought is far more evidentiary on other points.”

What evidence (evidence that would be accepted as such across intellectual cultures, disciplines, and environments) does the LDS church have for any of its core doctrines? The LDS leaders claim that the spirit is evidence to its truth claims. But in order to accept that as valid evidence, you would have to first accept that this spirit, as taught by the LDS leaders, actually exists and leads people to belief in the way that the leaders explain that it does. This brings me back to my original point. People are arriving at belief in LDS doctrines because of what they think is a private evidence which wouldn’t be considered as valid evidence in modern intellectual circles or even other faith traditions.

“faith can become knowledge”

Not in the way that it is meant in the larger intellectual world. Mormon doctrines aren’t influencing the wider body of knowledge in the world in the least. This knowledge you speak of is better termed as gnosis.

“The idea that reason is just deduction hasn’t been a popular view for a very long time”

Straw man. Nothing in what I wrote suggests that I regard reasoning to be just deduction. Belief in Mormon truth claims is not reasonable in the inductive sense either. The truth claims are neither conclusive nor probable. People are not arriving at belief in Mormon truth claims based on the standards that they would usually apply to determine whether a proposition is probable or conclusive. It is belief on no evidence, sparse evidence, bad evidence, and special private evidence.

As to the justification of ones own authority in interpreting, which I do assume, I think there are several reasons. First, as I’ve noted, I don’t think we can remove our own authority. We have to make interpretations in order to attribute authority to others. That presupposes some validity to our own interpretive conclusions which in turn implies at least some degree of authority. More particularly though is the fact that careful appeal to experience works better than the alternatives in arriving at correct conclusions. (Conclusions that stand the test of time if one doesn’t like the term “true” in this context)

Again I think Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief” is rather useful in this context.

Jeff (58) I think personal experience only has authority on ourselves except to the degree we’ve come to trust others due to their experience. So I’m apt to trust what a geologist says about a geological feature for example. However overall I think we have to continue to inquire which presupposes that while there is authority it’s never as strong as some (say you) portray it.

To the semantics of authority I’m fine using it however you wish. My basic point is just that authority is never absolute but is in tension with other demands. Your point, as I take it, is that authority is absolute.